After facing a legal firing squad from The Department of Justice and the American Civil Liberties Union for his voter registration purge initiative so close to a federal election, Florida Republican Governor Rick Scott revealed that his very own name turned up on the list of ineligible Florida voters in 2006; the reason? According to the State of Florida, the Governor was dead. The confusion appears to have stemmed from another man with the same first and last name as well as matching birthday who did in fact pass away in 2006, but the irony of the situation has cast a spectacular light on the Governors attempts to purge his voter rolls; if the states very own governor was once misrepresented, how many others are out of sync with the voter registration system?

Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner announced Monday that Florida would sue the Department of Homeland Security, if necessary, to gain access to the federal citizenship database (SAVE) to help carry out its voter purge.

The reply to Florida from assistant attorney general Thomas Perez, wrote in a letter Monday to Detzner, was exactly what we’ve all come to expect in these types of state vs. federal pissing matches: “Because the State has indicated its unwillingness to comply with our requirements, I have authorized the initiation of an enforcement action against Florida in federal court.”

The DOJ is coming after Florida and Gov. Scott hard, claiming that the state is in violation of the Voting Rights Act as well as The National Voter Registration Act which state that voter purge can’t be politically motivated nor occur within 90 days of a federal election.

When asked about political motives the Governor had this to say:

“This is not a partisan issue, this is Republican, Democrat, independent, this is protecting the rights of U.S. citizens and not diluting their vote by non-U.S. citizens,” said Scott.

Scott said Monday that Florida has found nearly 100 non-citizens on state voter rolls in preliminary searches.

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